Nonsense for Uncommon Good

Fallacious claim

Do you know Africans arrived on the shores of Puerto Rico more than 500 years ago, making Black Puerto Ricans the first non-indigenous people to land on those shores?

Despite this fact, it is more important to note that there appears to be an entrenched belief that choosing to identify as “Black” on the Island erases unique cultural identity — including language, food, and custom, and aligns too closely with the experiences of Black Americans on the mainland.

Before the 1960s, census takers in the US and Puerto Rico decided on race when taking the census, and in Puerto Rico they applied whiteness liberally, including sometimes reclassifying people from Black to white.

Currently, all residents can select “Yes, Puerto Rican,” on the census to indicate their Hispanic origin. But when it comes to race, residents must choose among “white,” “Black,” “American Indian,” multiple options for Asian heritage, or write something in; most choose “white.”

Natives of the Island complain about the slow response after natural disasters, which appears to become the impetus behind many residents reconsidering their decision to identify as white Americans. Yet, when asked many do not find it unusual that it took longer to restore essential services in all of the historically African communities across the Island following Hurricane Maria.

The Puerto Rican elite worked in concert to equate privilege to whiteness and implemented unspoken rules of who counts as white as part of a broader societal project to appear whiter to the US.

Much like in other parts of the world, Black residents of Puerto Rico must educate themselves on the significant contributions of Black locals, and/or African civilizations.

In addition, similar to the mainland the Puerto Rican education system does not and has historically never included curricula about the contributions of Black people, rather most academic texts depict Black people as slaves, and not as people who were enslaved. 

Regardless, estimates indicate that the average Puerto Rican has as little as 22% or as much as 65% African DNA, and because the self-proclaimed moral majority gives less than a flip about minorities, every Puerto Rican should consider aligning with Black America because every Puerto Rican is a Black American!